‘You were talking of our companions?’
‘Meryre …’ Sobeck shook his head. ‘Such a pure priest, such a naughty boy: he loves Kushite girls, the fatter the better. He doesn’t pray so much when he’s squealing between mounds of perfumed oiled flesh.’ Sobeck rocked backwards and forwards. ‘Huy is different. Oh, he likes the ladies but it’s wealth he wants, and power! To become a Great One of Pharaoh and rise high in the tree.’
‘You know so much.’
‘Of course I do, Mahu. Where do you think these people hire servants? They come to the marketplace or the Necropolis, this young man, that young woman. These people go home to chatter and gossip. It’s surprising how many people talk as if servants don’t exist. Oh, by the way, you should tell your master to be careful. The great ones of Thebes, not to forget our shaven heads in the Temple of Amun, hate him beyond all understanding.’
‘And what do you know of the Akhmin gang?’
‘Oh, you mean God’s Father Ay and Nefertiti the Great Wife?’ Sobeck whistled through his teeth. ‘They are very close, very close indeed! Ah well.’ He picked up the diamonds he had placed beneath the cushion, took the pouch from his belt and poured them in. ‘Watch the night sky, Mahu, and you’ll see the fire.’
He helped me to my feet.
The puppy also rose, yelping. Sobeck leaned down, grasped it by the nape of the neck and pulled it up.
‘I am still in the dog-skinning business, Mahu! This will be good for the child of some pilgrim.’ The dog yelped again, little legs flailing in the air. ‘An orphan.’ Sobeck placed it back. ‘No one will miss it.’
I leaned down and scooped it up; the puppy licked my hand. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘What?’ Sobeck laughed. ‘Mahu, have you gone sentimental? But you have made a good choice.’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘It’s a greyhound, isn’t it? They make good watchdogs.’ I held Sobeck’s gaze. ‘And if treated affectionately, will give the utmost loyalty. I don’t give a fig about a puppy. What I am anxious about, Sobeck, is taking a goblet of wine on the roof of my house whilst some silent shadow comes creeping up the stairs.’
Sobeck put his arm round my shoulder, pushing me towards the door. ‘Keep your dog, Mahu. You are going to need all the protection you can get.’
I paused. Again he gave me a squeeze, nails pressing into the fleshy part of my arm.
‘We talked about what we want,’ he whispered. ‘Horemheb’s ambition, Huy’s lust for wealth and power, but your master, the Grotesque, he’s the dangerous one. He wants to be a god.’
‘So does every Pharaoh.’
‘Ah yes, Mahu, but the Grotesque is different. He really thinks he is a god, the only god, the God Incarnate. Mark my words, those who look for god in everything end up looking for god in themselves – and usually find it.’ He released his grip and patted me on the shoulder. ‘You are safe to go. No one will trouble you.’
Still wearing Snefru’s coat, I reached the quayside. Ferries were few as darkness had fallen. The river people were reluctant to ply their trade, fearful of pirates and smugglers, not to mention hungry crocodiles or angry hippopotami. However, as soon as I arrived the punt appeared, broad and squat, low in the water. A young man stood in the stern, pole resting against his shoulder. An old man, whom I took to be his father, sat just before the prow carved in the shape of a panther’s head: above this a pitch torch flared whilst a quilted hide of sheepskin covered the rear benches.
‘Fruit,’ the old man called, gesturing, ‘but if you want … ?’
I climbed in, handed over some copper
debens
and sat in front of the old man. He crouched, red-rimmed eyes smiling, chomping on his gums. From a card round his neck hung an amulet, a jackal’s head. The old man was singing softly under his breath, rocking backwards and forwards. I wondered how much beer he had drunk. The puntsman was skilled enough and the craft moved away, out from the dangers lurking along the reedfilled banks. I clasped the puppy, warm under my cloak, my mind full of thoughts about Sobeck and the hidden threat of his words. The old man chattered, but I didn’t really listen. The dancing torch flame caught my gaze. My eyes grew heavy. I was stupid, I relaxed. The strengthening cold breeze awoke me. When I stirred and glanced up, the old man didn’t look so cheery or welcoming; his was an evil face full of ancient sin. He was staring at me as if I was a bull for the slaughter, squinting to see if I had a pendant beneath my cloak or bracelets on my wrist. I glanced to my left. The punt was now in midriver, further from the bank than it should have been; we were too far out in the blackness, the river running strong. The puppy stirred as it caught my alarm.
‘This is not—!’
I felt the blade touch the back of my head.
‘Now, traveller, be at peace.’ The old man rocked backwards and forwards, chortling with laughter. The boat was moving swiftly; the puntsman must still be at his post so the blade was being held by an assassin – that’s what the sheepskins had concealed. They’d been waiting for me and I had walked into the trap like some brainless hare caught in a hunter’s net.
‘Here?’ the harsh voice grated behind me. ‘One stab, one slash!’
‘Oh no.’ The old man wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Not here, near the crocodile pools: no sign, no trace.’
‘Whatever you were offered,’ I declared, ‘I’ll give you more.’
The old man squinted at me, leaned over and patted me gently on the wrist. ‘It’s not like that,’ he replied sadly. ‘It’s not like that at all.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Ask the Lord Anubis when you meet him.’
‘Why?’
‘Ask him that as well.’
The puppy was now squealing. I gazed across the night-shrouded water. The banks were distant, their fading pricks of light mocked me. Was this Sobeck’s work? No, I reasoned he would have killed me as soon as we met. I made to move, the knife pricked my neck and I winced. A screech owl called, a soul-chilling cry echoed by the roar of a hippopotamus. The water slapped against the boat, the night air was freezing cold. I wanted to be sick but my throat was too dry even to swallow or beg for my life: those cruel old eyes showed no pity. These assassins had been hired for the task and they’d complete it.
‘We will take everything you have.’ Again the pat on my wrist. ‘And if you behave we’ll cut your throat before the crocodiles even know you are in the water. Good,’ the old man sniffed. ‘You are going to be quiet, no crying and weeping, bawling and begging. Listen, I have a poem.’ He hawked and spat. ‘I recite it to all my guests.’ He poked my cloak where the puppy squirmed. ‘You have a dog there?’ He pulled back my robe with the tip of the dagger concealed in his hand. ‘A puppy, how sweet! Well, we’ll kill that, too, as an offering to the River God, to keep us safe. Look at the mist. You have only got one journey,’ he sniggered. ‘We have to make two.’
A bank of mist was drifting across the water, wafted and shifted by the breeze.
‘Now keep that little cur silent.’ The old man preened himself. ‘My poem is important, it’s your death lament.’ He intoned: ‘In the end, all things break down. All flesh drains. All blood dries …’
‘Ahoy there!’
I gazed into the night. A skiff, a torch lashed to the pole on the front, was aiming straight towards us.
‘Ahoy there! May the God Hapi be with us! May his name—!’
‘What do you want?’ the old man screeched.
‘I am lost.’ The light concealed the speaker.
‘Where do you want to be?’ the assassin behind me bellowed.
‘In the Fields of the Blessed,’ the cheery voice rang out. The skiff turned abruptly to the left, coming up behind us. The assassin behind me dared not turn, nor could the puntsman. The old man was staring by me, trying to make out the newcomer. A sound like that of swift fluttering wings carried across the water, the music of an arrow. The man behind me holding the knife crashed into me, hands scrabbling at my back even as he coughed up life’s hot blood. Another whirr, a shriek followed by a splash as the puntsman collapsed into the water. The punt rocked dangerously but its broad flatness held it secure. The old man reacted too slowly. I lashed out with my fist as he rose. He staggered to the side, tried to regain his balance but tumbled into the water. The puppy jumped down between my feet. I pushed it away as I lurched to the side. The assassin behind me had now fallen over backwards. The arrow had taken him in the back of the neck and its barbed point jutted out under his chin. The old man was desperately trying to clamber aboard.
‘Please!’
I struck his vein-streaked, bald head. The punt was rocking from side to side. I clawed his face, pushing him under the water.
‘Finish your poem!’ I screamed. ‘Let the river beasts hear it!’ My nails dug into his face, one finger jabbed an eye. He lashed out at my hands. The water swirled, then he was gone. I sat back catching my breath. The corpse of the assassin who had pricked my throat followed his master into the water. The puppy was mewling softly. I snatched it up and looked for my rescuer. The skiff came alongside. The young man sitting so calmly within it smiled at me: a powerful Syrian bow across his lap, a quiver of arrows beside him. And that’s where I met him! Djarka, at the dead of night with the cold freezing my skin and my heart and belly lurching with fear. He just smiled at me, his smooth, olive-skinned face unmarked even by a bead of sweat, those dark thick-lashed eyes staring curiously. He played with his black oiled hair, ringlets tumbling down each side of his face. At the time he looked more like a young woman than a man. I watched his hands. I could see no dagger.
‘Mahu.’ He spread his arms. ‘Mahu, come!’ His voice was tinged with an accent. ‘I am Djarka of the Sheshnu.’
‘So?’
‘I am one of the Silent Ones who serve Great Queen Tiye. I am to be your servant.’
‘I don’t need one.’
‘Oh yes, you certainly do,’ he sighed. ‘Come, we can talk on the way. The Great Queen wishes to speak to you. Let’s be gone before the river guards pass.’
I gripped the soaked puppy and jumped into the skiff. Djarka grabbed the paddle and we moved swiftly away, leaving the barge rocking in the river, its fiery cresset torch fading to a distant blur of light.
‘You were following me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Sobeck’s men never caught you?’
Djarka shrugged the robe off his shoulders and passed it back to me: it was quartered in four colours, red, blue, black and bright yellow.
‘People always look for the same,’ Djarka declared over his shoulder. ‘I try never to be the same. Sometimes I wear a hood. Sometimes I remove my sandals. I watched you leave the Sign of the Ankh. You went down to the quayside and acted very stupidly. They were waiting for you.’
‘But how did they know? Sobeck must have betrayed me.’
‘No.’ Djarka turned back and concentrated on his paddling. We were now approaching the Karnak side of the river and I could glimpse the lights along the quayside. ‘Sobeck would have killed you and buried your body out in the Red Lands.’
‘Then who?’
‘Someone wants you dead but, there again, someone wants me dead. We kill each other in our thoughts.’
By now my stomach had quietened, my heart beat not so fast. ‘You are a priest, a philosopher?’
Djarka laughed merrily like a boy and my heart warmed to him. ‘No, I am a hunter,’ he replied. ‘No, that’s wrong. I am an actor who mimes. Wrong again,’ he mused. ‘I am merely the Great Queen’s servant. I met you years ago, Mahu, out in the desert but I was a boy. You wouldn’t remember. Ah well, we are here.’
Djarka nosed the craft along the quayside steps which served one of the smaller courts of the Malkata Palace. He picked up a rope, lashed it to the metal ring driven into the wall and helped me out onto the slippery steps.
‘Can’t you get rid of that?’ He pointed at the puppy. He plucked it from my hands as he led me up the steps. We hurried across the courtyard, then Djarka stopped at a storeroom, pulled open a door and threw in the bow and arrows, followed by the little puppy, slamming the door shut on its whining and yelping.
‘It will be safe and warm there and will soon go to sleep. What are you going to call it?’
‘Karnak.’
Djarka gave a twisted smile. ‘The shaven heads of Amun will love that.’ He led me into the palace proper: guards in their blue and gold head-dresses, ceremonial shields displaying the ram’s head of Amun, stopped us. Djarka produced a clay tablet pass which silenced all questions and we were ushered on.
Queen Tiye was waiting for us in a downstairs chamber overlooking a small enclosed garden. The air was sweet with fragrance and through the open window I could see braziers glowing, their light shimmering on the ornamental lakes and pools. The room itself was bright, its walls painted blue and yellow with an oakwood border along the top and bottom. Queen Tiye was sitting on a small divan, the cushions plumped about her, poring over rolls of papyrus. She was dressed in a simple white tunic with an embroidered shawl studded with precious stones about her shoulders. As we came in, she glanced up. Her eyes were tired; the furrows on either side of her mouth were deeper, more marked than before.